The January Playlist
I am of two minds about this new year: I am happy to see the backside of 2025 and I am not ready to announce my big resolutions and grand dreams about the next 12 months.
Actually, I might never be ready for that kind of pressure. Instead, it feels like enough these days to just dig deeper into the quiet intentions of this chapter of life, to give intense attention to the people and practices of my days, to focus on doing one single thing and then the next, to sweep my floors and water my garden, to cuddle my cats and my husband, to make my music. Recently, I ran into this quote by the NYTimes columnist David Brooks, paraphrased in the book Deep Work by Cal Newport: “[Great creative minds] think like artists but work like accountants.”
Amen, brother.
Over the holidays I discovered Winter Morning Walks by Ted Kooser, a lovely book of poems for every day of the season. Kooser begins each poem with a weather report: Sunny and cold. A pale half moon far in the west. Twenty degrees at sunrise. In these dark winter days, full of blurry intentions and foggy directions, I love these details. Gusty and warmer. Clear and cool. New snow. Here, today, this is where I find myself with all its small, significant particularities.
Every January, my house concert series Movable Sol presents what we call the “Winter Playlist.” This is a program of reflective, meditative music—with no talking—given by candlelight. It has become a favorite of our audience, a welcome reset after the jingle and glitter and sugar rush of the holidays. We all need a place to exhale.
But the Winter Playlist got me thinking: what might be my personal playlist of verbs and action items this month? What is the weather of my inner and outer worlds? What am I listening to, teaching, rehearsing, reading, writing and thinking about? Such attention to detail could sort out, if not one’s year, at least one’s day and hour. Maybe it’s not a grand lofty ambition, but it’s a tangible place to begin to organize my activities in the months ahead.
The 2026 January Playlist:
Grey. Drizzle. Threatening snow, with intermittent sunshine breaking through the clouds.
Listening: Every January I return to the modern jazz recording Changing Places by the Tord Gustavsen trio. It feels intimate, spare and white, like a landscape covered with snow. A couple weeks ago, we saw the film Köln 75, about Keith Jarrett’s legendary 1975 Köln concert, and spent Christmas afternoon listening to that album for the 108th time. It never grows old. This year Spotify led me to a new discovery: Officium by The Hilliard Ensemble. It is breathtakingly beautiful and perfect for a chilly winter day.
Practicing and Rehearsing: Much of my time on the bench is occupied these days with Chopin’s D-flat Nocturne and the third movement of Rachmaninov’s cello sonata, both for the upcoming MovSol program. The Rachmaninov, in particular, is a desert island piece.
Reading: In a year of books, usually there are only a handful so outstanding that I recommend loudly to friends and family. Last year I could not stop talking about This is Happiness and The Time of the Child, both by Niall Williams, but lately I have been thinking a lot about the Sister Bells trilogy by Norwegian writer Lars Mytting. The first two Mytting books are stunning and set in the harsh, fierce northern countryside (which seems to be always cold, so perfect for a winter read). I think they deserve a revisit before I start the third one, The Night of the Scourge, just published last year in the U.S.
Teaching: William Gillock’s Lyric Preludes in Romantic Style is a go-to collection in my teaching repertoire. I love these pieces; students of all ages and personalities love these pieces. In fact, I am currently teaching these pieces to both a 67-year-old and a 12-year-old, and one or two may find their way onto the MovSol playlist in a week or two. But recently I was introduced to Piano Miniatures by Victor Labenske, which like the Gillock is a set of 24 pieces in every major or minor key. The beauty of this discovery is that these charming pieces are a bit easier and more accessible for intermediate students than the Gillock. I have no fewer than ten students working through this collection right now. It’s a treasure.
Writing: 2026 marks the 20th anniversary of this blog, a fact that makes my head spin a bit. I was so young when I began posting here. For starters, I had great knees and not a single grey hair. Of course, the site has seen many revisions and redesigns over the last two decades, but I have remained stubbornly faithful to it and my loyal readers over the years. To mark this anniversary, I have spent the last year rereading the numerous musings and collecting timeless thoughts (or useless anecdotes) from the last twenty years of blog posts. Here’s a small idea to chew on from June 2020:
“…It is easy to want to throw in the towel and give up any pretense at regular routines or productivity, but then I remember: I have watered a lot of plants with a migraine. Almost always, with enough resourceful and creative thinking, there is some forward movement that can take place. As the creative guru Julia Cameron said, ‘You do not often need to make large changes. Large changes occur in tiny increments. It is useful to think in terms of a space flight: by altering the launch trajectory very slightly, a great difference can be made over time.’ In other words, baby steps matter…”
And perhaps that is the perfect tone to set for the new year: Baby steps matter. The details of our world, in the end, make up our life. Here’s to new beginnings, my dear and loyal readers.